A sheriff has cleared a hospital of any blame over the death of a young mother who died weeks after giving birth.
Instead, Sheriff Sir Stephen Young criticised the ''dogmatic'' evidence of an independent expert who insisted the woman's death was the result of a catalogue of blunders by staff at Inverclyde Royal Hospital.
Ms Jacqueline Buck, 25, of Glencoe Court, Greenock, suffered a massive heart attack after developing blood clots in her legs. She had been released from Inverclyde Royal Hospital on January 25, 1996, where her son had been delivered by Caesarean section seven days earlier.
However, despite complaining on numerous occasions of severe pains in her legs, Ms Buck collapsed in her home on 14 February, and died in hospital soon after.
Gynaecology expert Professor John Bonnar, who investigated Ms Buck's case, told a fatal accident inquiry at Greenock Sheriff Court last month, that if standard treatments had been given these would have been successful.
Professor Bonnar, 63, said Ms Buck developed infection within hours of the baby's delivery, but was not given anti-biotics until the following day.
Referring to research into the problems suffered by women, following either emergency or planned Caesarean section, Professor Bonnar insisted that Ms Buck should have been given treatment before infection set in.
He added that the woman had been subjected to five internal examinations as staff at Inverclyde Royal Hospital tried to induce birth, which was ten days overdue. ''That merely increases the risk of infection,'' he added.
However, in his 21-page determination, Sir Stephen criticised Professor Bonnar for the ''dogmatic manner'' of his evidence, and said: ''I have little difficulty in rejecting the evidence of Professor Bonnar.
''I regard the staff at Inverclyde Hospital as blameless. The inquiry failed to establish any precautions which might reasonably have been taken.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article